20161010

NEW ORDER

The English rock band Joy Division was formed in 1976. Joy Division then became New Order in 1980 after the death of singer Ian Curtis. The 1983 single 'Blue Monday' sold more than a quarter of a million copies in the United Kingdom. "Fate writes the lyrics, we do the rest," drummer Stephen Morris told 'Rolling Stone' at the time.

In 2012, Bernard Sumner spoke to nme.com, "I don't really see it as a song. I see it more as a machine designed to make people dance. It comes on in a club and it sounds so powerful, like standing next to a ship's engine. I was in a club in Berlin a few years ago where they were playing some really good, modern house music, then 'Blue Monday' came on and it just sounded great - even in a contemporary context, and up against modern production."

In 1988, Quincy Jones and John Potoker remixed 'Blue Monday' and released it under the title "Blue Monday 88". The remix peaked at No. 3 in the British charts mostly due to the record-breaking sales of the 7" version. Bernard believed, "I think 'Blue Monday' connects with people because of the startling lack of emotional content within the song. It's kind of contradictory, really. I think the way that everything in it is synchronised, so it's like all these different gear cogs meshing together, and each synthesiser part is like a different gear. It all comes together like clockwork. If I could properly explain it, I'd write another one! But that's the beauty of music, there's no method to it."

In 1995, the German duo Hardfloor performed another remix of the song 'Blue Monday' which peaked at No. 17 in the U.K.
Bernard made the observation, "We were at the vanguard with that song - stuff like that wasn't being played on the radio or in clubs … Suddenly this track came along that sounded different to everything else, so DJ's started playing it. And it kept coming back into the charts.

"We actually never got any radio play off 'Blue Monday'; it was a hit in spite of the radio. To be fair, it was only available on 12", so they couldn't play it on the radio and it wouldn't have made sense on the radio, where you could only play a 3-minute fragment. So it was through clubs that it became a hit, and then became a hit again, and again and again, as it traveled from country to country."

On reflection, Peter Hook told 'Q' magazine, "I go through stages of intense dislike for 'Blue Monday,' which I'm sure every group does when they get one song they're synonymous with, but the way it keeps getting reinvented is wonderful. It seems to be one of those tracks that's timeless, which is amazing. We were using technology which could have dated like other '80s stuff, but somehow we managed to swerve it. Was that deliberate? No, everything we do is by accident ... 'Blue Monday''s not a song, it's a feeling, but once people hear that drum riff they're off."

In the October 2015 interview with 'Quietus', Bernard told John Doran, "When I write I’m influenced by the kind of dance music I grew up with, and you can’t help but be influenced by that. But many different things affect your songwriting. One of them is your record collection, and another are the records you’ve heard in clubs or while traveling abroad.

"Another big influence is what kind of life experiences you’ve had. They’re a big factor in whether you make dark music or light music. Also, the surroundings you grew up in can have a bearing on your music. Like Joy Division, for example, were definitely products of what Manchester was like in the late 70s, which was quite brutal in visual terms.

"It was a visually brutal city. All these dark satanic mills with smashed windows… but they weren’t even mills anymore, they were just these derelict spaces. That all had an effect on the music of Joy Division. But then it’s also about where you are, as a person at that moment in time. We’ve also spent 3 and a half years touring and playing live a lot. The best gigs are 50% from the band and 50% from the audience. There’s an interaction between the band and the audience at the best gigs. I think we’ve had some feedback from the audience on what sort of album we should be making. That educated us shall we say."